this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023
176 points (97.3% liked)

World News

32500 readers
752 users here now

News from around the world!

Rules:

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

That made mw think, what is worst for the environment, an oil spill, that is pretty localized, or the use of the same amount of spilled oil in production of energy and others, that affects the entire planet?

[–] marsokod 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

By quantity of oil, I would think an oil spill is more damaging.

However, the damage from the sum of all oil spills pale in comparison to the damage of burned fossil fuels. But that's because we try not to spill oil too much, that's expensive to waste it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What do you mean by quantity of oil, is the same quantity. One is preprocessed, but very densely localized, the other is the same amount but in it entirely of use.

[–] theragu40 4 points 1 year ago

He's saying we would never have an oil spill equivalent to the amount of oil that is used because we try very hard not to spill oil. It is expensive and damaging.

If you are asking a hypothetical question comparing the amount of oil in a spill and its damage to the environment vs simply using that oil normally, I think the oil spill wins in a landslide for being the most damaging.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I think they mean like a gallon of gasoline burned in a car does less environmental damage than the same gallon of gasoline just released into the environment.

Not saying it is or isn't, just how I took it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

On a long enough time span, that oil disperses throughout the entire ocean. Same goes for the pollution so it's a matter of Ocean toxicity vs greenhouse effect/air quality